Jaffur Shurreef (so spelled in the English translation of The Achehnese; the name is pronounced, as Snouck Hurgronje notes, “ja-fur shrěf”) was a Muslim author of British India whose work Qanoon-e-islam, translated into English by Dr. G. A. Herklots (2nd edition, Madras, 1863), is cited at length by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese. The book is described as “a very noteworthy and full description” of the popular religious festivals of the Mohammedans of the Deccan and the coastlands of southern India.
The importance of Jaffur Shurreef’s work for Snouck Hurgronje’s argument lies in its testimony to the syncretic character of popular Islam in southern India. The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in the Qanoon-e-islam, are — like the Muslims of the Malay Archipelago — Shafi’ites; but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences.” This is the key to the central problem of religious diffusion that Snouck Hurgronje is concerned with in the chapter on popular religion: how did features of the Hasan-Husain festival — a popular commemoration of the martyrs of Kerbela — come to be observed in the Eastern Archipelago, despite the fact that the Malays and Javanese are orthodox Sunnis of the Shafi’ite school?
Snouck Hurgronje’s answer is that the Deccanese form of Islam, as documented by Jaffur Shurreef, exercised on the Islam of the Indonesians an influence “superior in force to that of any other agency.” As he puts it: “As is clear from a comparison of Jaffur Shurreef’s book with what we actually find in Netherlands-India, these adventitious additions to their creed were adopted by the Malay and Javanese converts with just as much readiness as the fundamental truths of the Shafi’ite law or of the teaching universally accepted as orthodox.” The popular religious literature of the Archipelago — the romantic adventures of Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), of Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), of the hero Sam’un and Raja Badar — points in the same direction: it is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.”
The Qanoon-e-islam is also cited by Snouck Hurgronje for specific points of detail. The Hasan-Husain festival in Netherlands-India, and especially on the West Coast of Sumatra (at Padang, Bencoolen etc.), is celebrated “on a smaller scale, but in much the same manner as we find it described in the Qanoon-e-islam.” The kanji Ashura (the ritual pottage of the 10th of Muharram), the symbolical coffin of the martyrs of Kerbela, and even the participation of Hindus in British India in the Hasan-Husain feasts — all are documented by Jaffur Shurreef and used by Snouck Hurgronje to illumine the Achehnese observances of the month of Asan-Usen.
Jaffur Shurreef’s work thus occupies a strategic place in the comparative method of Vol. I of The Achehnese: it is the principal textual bridge between the popular Islam of southern India and the popular Islam of the Eastern Archipelago.
See Also
- G. A. Herklots
- Qanoon-e-islam
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Hasan-Husain feast
- Ashura
- Kerbela
- Deccan
- Amir Hamzah
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Sam’un
- Raja Badar
- British India
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Jaffur Shurreef (so spelled in the English translation of The Achehnese; the name is pronounced, as Snouck Hurgronje notes, “ja-fur shrěf”) was a Muslim author of British India whose work Qanoon-e-islam, translated into English by Dr. G. A. Herklots (2nd edition, Madras, 1863), is cited at length by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese. The book is described as “a very noteworthy and full description” of the popular religious festivals of the Mohammedans of the Deccan and the coastlands of southern India.
The importance of Jaffur Shurreef’s work for Snouck Hurgronje’s argument lies in its testimony to the syncretic character of popular Islam in southern India. The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in the Qanoon-e-islam, are — like the Muslims of the Malay Archipelago — Shafi’ites; but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences.” This is the key to the central problem of religious diffusion that Snouck Hurgronje is concerned with in the chapter on popular religion: how did features of the Hasan-Husain festival — a popular commemoration of the martyrs of Kerbela — come to be observed in the Eastern Archipelago, despite the fact that the Malays and Javanese are orthodox Sunnis of the Shafi’ite school?
Snouck Hurgronje’s answer is that the Deccanese form of Islam, as documented by Jaffur Shurreef, exercised on the Islam of the Indonesians an influence “superior in force to that of any other agency.” As he puts it: “As is clear from a comparison of Jaffur Shurreef’s book with what we actually find in Netherlands-India, these adventitious additions to their creed were adopted by the Malay and Javanese converts with just as much readiness as the fundamental truths of the Shafi’ite law or of the teaching universally accepted as orthodox.” The popular religious literature of the Archipelago — the romantic adventures of Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), of Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), of the hero Sam’un and Raja Badar — points in the same direction: it is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.”
The Qanoon-e-islam is also cited by Snouck Hurgronje for specific points of detail. The Hasan-Husain festival in Netherlands-India, and especially on the West Coast of Sumatra (at Padang, Bencoolen etc.), is celebrated “on a smaller scale, but in much the same manner as we find it described in the Qanoon-e-islam.” The kanji Ashura (the ritual pottage of the 10th of Muharram), the symbolical coffin of the martyrs of Kerbela, and even the participation of Hindus in British India in the Hasan-Husain feasts — all are documented by Jaffur Shurreef and used by Snouck Hurgronje to illumine the Achehnese observances of the month of Asan-Usen.
Jaffur Shurreef’s work thus occupies a strategic place in the comparative method of Vol. I of The Achehnese: it is the principal textual bridge between the popular Islam of southern India and the popular Islam of the Eastern Archipelago.
See Also
- G. A. Herklots
- Qanoon-e-islam
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Hasan-Husain feast
- Ashura
- Kerbela
- Deccan
- Amir Hamzah
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Sam’un
- Raja Badar
- British India
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.